Back in 1991 before anyone in Evangelical world had heard of N. T. Wright or “the Federal Vision,” Jim Jordan of Biblical Horizons and Peter Leithart gave a conference that pointed out the political nature of the Gospel and of Arminianism and revivalism.
The recordings of these lectures are worth a lot more than five bucks.
I’ll start with Mr. James B. Jordan first. At that time Greg Bahnsen had just written his No Other Standard, a response to a rather uneven collection of essays by Seminary professors entitled Theonomy: A Reformed Critique as well as The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses by Vern Poythress. Jordan begins his first lecture informing his audience that he had intended to deliver studies on the Noahic law, but had recently received a copy of Bahnsen’s book defending his ideas. So rather than stick with his plan he decided to address Bahnsen’s position against his critics.
Theonomy A Preliminary Theocratic Critique 1
This first recording starts off with a bang by pointing out the obvious fact that the Gospel is inherently theocratic. In fact, both the Great Commission and the preaching in Acts show the Gospel message is that Jesus is the exalted king. It is a theocratic proclamation. This is the lecture that tells you that everything you know is wrong: In the OT individual people were changed but history never changed. In the OT individual people were saved but the world was not saved. Until Now. Now the Gospel proclaims the change in history and the salvation of the world.
(By the way, this was years before N. T. Wright came out with What Saint Paul Really Said, showing that the term, “gospel” designated a royal pronouncement rather than a personal improvement message about spiritual renewal.)
There is also a lot of good study of the OT (this seems to be the theonomic divide: some people wanted to talk about God’s law and others wanted to actuall find out what it was). Jordan’s first point is that there needs to be more reflection on the actual nature of Biblical torah. Jordan raises that the Law in the Bible sounds nothing like what we think of as law. We make it into “law” by abstracting the parts that fit our expectations out of the text.
This is a great lecture that will change your thinking in many ways.
Theonomy A Preliminary Theocratic Critique 2
This lecture continues Jordan’s arguments. I won’t attempt to rehearse them all here. But to give one example, Jordan points out that saying Biblical Law is “binding” is an equivocation. Of course, all revelation is binding, but that doesn’t mean that we are supposed to follow what they actually say (i.e. circumcision). This is not even a distinctive issue faced by us in the Christian era. Converted Gentiles, like those of the ciy of Ninevah, would have had to figure out which dimensions of the Torah really were for them to obey.
Jordan goes on to both deconstruct, and raise exegetical problems with, Bahnsen’s use of Matthew 5.
Theonomy A Preliminary Theocratic Critique 3
Jordan continues to pose questions about Bahnsenian Theonomy and whether it is really derived from Scripture. What makes Jordan’s approach unique is that he is not driven by a need to prove Bahnsen totally wrong, but simply wants Theonomy to give an account for what all of Scripture says.
Somewhat like Jordan’s criticism that Theonomy, Peter Leithart shows that Theonomists have been too simplistic in claiming Calvin as a precedent. Of course, the same holds true of the anti-Theonomists. Calvin, like all the Christians of his day and for centuries prior, was a theocrat.
Theocracy, Revivalism, and Democracy
Building on his description of Calvin’s thought, Leithart argues that the rise of revivalism contributed to a significant change in Christian social order. This is an important lecture that should interest many different sorts of Christians (and non-Christians for that matter).
Let me emphasize that point for the entire conference: these lectures are going to be interesting to people who have no interest in “theonomy” debates from the early nineties. Anyone interested in issues of being “missional” or “emergent/ing church” concerns, or in Biblical theology, or in American culture, or in the controversy surrounding N. T. Wright, is going to find a great deal to chew on in these messages.
And each lecture is on sale right now for only a dollar!
(Full disclosure: I have done work for WordMp3.com)
PS. If anyone wants to support the work of WordMp3.com, consider linking the product site entry.
Mark,
Thanks for pointing this out. Back in 1991, I was in college and had just discovered Reformed theology. I had grown up as a conservative mainline Methodist. I appreciated the Reformed focus on the doctrines of grace, yet it always seemed that Methodists had a better sense of the political implications of Christ’s death and resurrection (though that sense led them in odd directions, at times). Therefore, theonomy piqued my interest.
But my interest was not piqued for too long. Most of the real-live theonomists I met were generally mean and angry, and had little interest in the political implications of the gospel outside of wreaking havoc on “secular humanists”. Most of them also seemed to have a sort of “Bob Jones” feel to them, a la Vision Forum Ministries (whose silly catalogs I still receive regularly).
I wasn’t even sure that most of the Bahnsenites really understood Bahnsen. They just struck me as a bunch of nasty militant “religious right” types who were in search of another basis upon which they could condemn everyone and everything around them. I remember telling one of them that I enjoyed reading Stan Hauerwas. He replied that Hauerwas was not a Christian because he did not accept the absolute inerrancy of Scripture. At a certain level, this kind of anti-intellectualism seemed to characterize most theonomists I met in the early 90s.
I’m now a conservative Anglican and observe the PCA and OPC only from afar. But why do you suppose that in Presbyterian circles theonomy never gained a foothold among mainstream folks? Why did only the hardened culture warriors jump on board (and even then, without understanding what they were advocating)? And why did the movement fail to engage scholars like de Lubac, Balthasar, O’Donovan, or Hauerwas, and instead looked only to Van Til and Rushdoony? And why was the bulk of theonomists’ interest aimed only at issues related in some manner to sexual fidelity (i.e., abortion and gay rights)? In short, why did the movement come across as little more than the “Moral Majority on steroids”?
I recognize that I’m generalizing to a degree. And I realize that you, Leithart, and Jordan represent something of an exception to my generalizations. But I can’t help thinking that the FV discussion in the PCA is hampered by people’s bad memories of the angry theonomists who monopolized Sunday school discussions in Reformed churches throughout the 90s.
On Wright and “the politics of the Gospel”: Yeah, of course the Gospel is a royal pronouncement. But I think Wright misses the upshot. The Roman Empire is a piffle (and Jesus treats it like that in dismissing its power when interacting with Pilate). The real rivalry is between Satan’s dominion and Christ’s dominion. If you don’t mind, I’ve provided a couple of links where I discuss this.
http://lutheranguest.blogspot.com/2006/10/politics-of-gospel.html
http://lutheranguest.blogspot.com/2007/05/jesus-is-lord-as-gospel.html
As I mention in one of the comments, focusing on the Roman Empire instead of Satan as Jesus’ rival in the New Testament seems to me a bit like treating Italy as the Allies’ rival in WWII. I mean, sure it’s there and everything. But you’d pretty much miss the real picture if that’s your focus.
This theocrat thanks you for the recommendation!